When I was gro­wing up, my mother would some­times tell me to switch the TV chan­nel to a sta­tion with a male wea­ther­man. They usual­ly have the more accu­rate fore­cast, she’d say.

The wea­ther people are rea­ding a script, I would say, rol­ling my eyes. It’s all the same fore­cast.

It’s just a fee­ling, she would shrug.

Alas, it isn’t just a fee­ling. Even if women are consul­ting the same satel­lites, or rea­ding from the same script : their reports are sus­pect ; the jig is up. In other words, the arti­cu­la­tion of the rea­li­ty of my sex is impos­sible in dis­course, and for a struc­tu­ral, eide­tic rea­son. My sex is remo­ved, at least as the pro­per­ty of a sub­ject, from the pre­di­ca­tive mecha­nism that assures dis­cur­sive cohe­rence. (Luce Irigaray)

Irigaray’s ans­wer to this conun­drum?: to des­troy … [but] with nup­tial tools…. The option left to me, she writes, was to have a fling with the phi­lo­so­phers.